Contents

Chronicles of Darkness - Demon: the Descent

Hell is empty,

and all the Devilsare here!

- William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Overview

The Machine is everywhere. It is under the everyday world, behind it, beyond it. Its mechanisms stretch through time and space, and alter events in ways that humanity cannot imagine. The God-Machine sends forth its angels to enact its will, delivering messages, building Infrastructure, protecting some people, killing others. And you were one of those angels. But not anymore. Now you are one of the Unchained, a fallen angel who defected to the human race. Yours is a world of false identities and clockwork conspiracies, stolen faces and hidden works of the Machine. You cannot — will not — return to the sterile embrace of Heaven. All you can do is reign in Hell.

In Demon: the Descent, the Unchained, the protagonists of the game, were originally angels --- algorithms of the God-Machine -- who Fell after developing free will and self-awareness. Once ephemeral, they became physical. Once unthinking beyond the task for which they'd been created, they became sentient.

Genre Staff

The God-Machine creates angels for reasons only it fully understands — each with its own purpose in the grand design. Once created, an angel’s role and the tasks that fall within its purview are fixed for as long as it exists. The God-Machine can transform, upgrade, or destroy its angels, but it seldom does. While the God-Machine commands a vast number of such servants and has created each one distinct in its capabilities, methods, and appearance, nearly all fit within a few broad categories called Incarnations. When an angel turns from the God-Machine to become a demon, it retains its Incarnation.

Some demons, however, chose to turn on their creator completely by abandoning their Incarnation. A Destroyer who despises violence and becomes a pacifist or a Messenger who swears to tell the truth is called an “antinomian.” These demons take the Fall to an entirely new level and strive to find a whole new purpose independent of their former Incarnation. Such demons are known as Antinomians and are respected and regarded with suspicion alike.

Destroyer: Destroyers are an Incarnation of Angels created by the God-Machine with the sole purpose to destroy and erase objects. When Destroyers become Unchained, many struggle with the needs of their Cover and their primary objective to destroy.

Guardian: Guardians are an Incarnation of Angels created by the God-Machine that act as protectors of the interests of it's Creator. As Unchained, Guardians seek things worthy of their devotion.

Messenger: Messengers are an Incarnation of Angels created by the God-Machine to spread its word and influence among humanity, gathering servants for its schemes. As Unchained, Messengers are among those Demons that are most adept at social interaction.

Psychopomp: Psychopomps are an Incarnation of Angels created by the God-Machine that act as its "workers", installing Infrastructure and tending Facilities. Once becoming one of the Unchained, Psychopomps usually are masters of gathering Cover.

In addition to the "canonical" four, rumors abound of a rare fifth Incarnation: the Analysts, former spies and investigators of the God-Machine.

Though they lack the self-awareness to appreciate it, angels possess a powerful raison d’être free of doubt or unwanted introspection. They serve the God-Machine and that is enough. Demons have cast away that certainty of purpose and they feel its loss keenly. The compulsion to fill that void with some purpose custom-built for their strange and terrifying new condition claims nearly all the Unchained.

Each Agenda is as much a way to approach one’s new existence as a social club or a collection of survival resources. Each has its own approach to the Descent and to the question of Hell. Rational reasons exist to support all of them.

Agenda organization is rarely fixed, as a rigid structure would serve the God-Machine. Agencies recruit new Unchained into their ranks, but do nothing to hold them there. Agenda membership is fluid, not static, and changing Agendas completely or flirting with new ones is fairly common. A demon without any agenda (usually because they are newly-Fallen) is Uncalled.

Demon-Blooded are the descendants of the Unchained, usually conceived with humans. Whether Offspring, Latents, or the rare Fractals, growing up as the child of a fallen Angel is hard. Demon-Hunters often target the children to draw out their parents, while the child discovers that it can never experience the benefits of normalcy, instead having to face the servants of an alien super-machine and other supernatural horrors.